ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – A top official from the Kurdish-led Rojava (northeast Syria) administration warned on Monday that the Syrian Arab Army and its affiliated factions are not implementing a ceasefire signed with Kurdish-led forces, noting a massacre in Kobane and ongoing attacks in Rojava. 

“The Damascus government’s announcement of a ceasefire has not translated into any real commitment on the ground,” Elham Ahmad, foreign relations co-chair of the Rojava administration, said on X.

On Saturday, the Syrian defense ministry announced a 15-day extension to its ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), following a weeks-long violent military campaign launched by the Islamist-led Syrian Arab Army, in what Rojava authorities have described as an “existential” war.

Ahmed noted that the offensive against the residents and Kurdish-led forces is ongoing despite the ceasefire extension.

“What we are witnessing today is a massacre in Kobane and ongoing attacks across different areas of the Jazira region,” she said.

An attack by the Damascus-linked factions earlier on Monday in a village in Kobane’s southeastern outskirts resulted in at least five deaths, including two children, and five others were injured. 

The attack on Kobane's surrounding villages comes amid a suffocating siege imposed on the symbolic Kurdish city by Damascus, where the residents have been deprived of water, electricity, and internet, with a severe shortage of food and medicine.

At least five children have died so far from severe cold and lack of medical supplies, according to Rojava’s Kurdish Red Crescent.

Meanwhile, attacks are ongoing in Hasaka, part of the Jazira region, with the most recent attack resulting in the injury of three residents after government-affiliated divisions bombed the village of al-Milbiyah in the southern part of the province, according to an SDF statement.

“It is worth noting that these factions have violated the ceasefire agreement more than 20 times so far,” the SDF statement added.

“The gap between official rhetoric and the bloody reality continues to widen,” Ahmed said, dubbing the ceasefire a “political illusion” due to the lack of protection of civilian lives.

“Silence in the face of these crimes is a moral failure, and the international community bears an ethical responsibility to act,” she concluded.